Twitter / Google Partnership means more to Google than Twitter

At Web 2.o Summit Marissa Mayer, (Google CEO) opened her short presentation with a curious statement:

Listen for yourself…. (it’s only 15 seconds)

After announcing Googles partnership with Twitter, Mayer said,

“We will be featuring their tweets in our search results, as well as building a real time search ummmmm . . . ” Then she changed the subject.

Suffering Succotash. What is Mayer biting her tongue about? Is a Google Real Time Search Engine on its way?

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I think so. And I can’t wait.

For Twitter, it’s about Revenue

At the time of the announcement (and for over a year before) the big question had been how Twitter will earn revenue. So opening up tweets to Google search could be big for Twitter financially. Google could run the revenue side by continuing to run adwords alongside tweets and share a slice of revenue with Twitter.

But according to Evan Williams – (@Ev) the deal with Google isn’t about money. What’s it about then? For Twitter, social search will bring tweets into the mainstream. Will Twitter have to figure out their own advertising model? Possibly.

For Google, Twitter completes the Social Circle necessary to provide a more comprehensive Social Search tool.

Everyone is smiling, but no one quite as much as Marissa Mayer (@marissamayer)who tweeted after the announcement –

Using Google Profile as the base for defining social connections, Google yesterday released Google Social Search into Labs. Social Search features all kinds of trusted social search results (including Twitter Tweets) that are distinct for each user and strongly influenced by connections between people.

Bringing Twitter into the social circle of available links to draw upon opens the door to a more impressive Real Time Search application in the near future.